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      January 6 panel to release findings in 800-page report on Thursday

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      January 6 panel to release findings in 800-page report on ThursdayHouse committee to conclude Trump ‘provoked violence’ in criminal plot to overturn 2020 election An 800-page report to be released on Thursday by House investigators will conclude that Donald Trump criminally plotted to overturn his 2020 election defeat and “provoked his supporters to violence” at the Capitol with false claims of widespread voter fraud.The resulting 6 January 2021 insurrection by Trump’s followers threatened democracy with “horrific” brutality toward law enforcement and “put the lives of American lawmakers at risk”, according to the report’s executive summary.“The central cause of January 6th was one man, former President Donald Trump, who many others followed,” reads the report from the House January 6 committee, which is expected to be released in full on Thursday. “None of the events of January 6th would have happened without him.”Before the report’s release, the committee released 34 transcripts on Wednesday evening from the 1,000 interviews it conducted over the last 18 months. Most of those released feature witnesses who invoked their fifth amendment right against self-incrimination.Democrats praise January 6 panel’s work as Republicans call it ‘witch-hunt’Read moreThe report’s eight chapters will largely mirror nine hearings this year that presented evidence from the private interviews and millions of pages of documents. They tell the story of Trump’s extraordinary and unprecedented campaign to overturn his defeat and his pressure campaign on state officials, the justice department, members of Congress and his own vice-president to change the vote.A 154-page summary of the report released on Monday details how Trump amplified the false claims on social media and in public appearances, encouraging his supporters to travel to Washington and protest Joe Biden’s presidential election win. It also addresses how the then president urged supporters to “fight like hell” at a huge rally in front of the White House that morning and then did little to stop the violence as they beat police, broke into the Capitol and sent lawmakers running for their lives.It was a “multi-part conspiracy”, the committee concludes.The report comes as Trump is running again for the presidency and facing multiple federal investigations, including inquiries into his role in the insurrection and the presence of classified documents at his Florida estate. A House committee is expected to release his tax returns in the coming days – documents he has fought for years to keep private. And he has been blamed by Republicans for a worse-than-expected showing in the midterm elections, leaving him in his most politically vulnerable state since he won the 2016 election.It is also a culmination of four years of work by a House Democratic majority that has spent much of its time and energy investigating Trump and that is ceding power to Republicans in two weeks. Democrats impeached Trump twice – both times he was acquitted by the Senate – and investigated his finances, his businesses, his foreign ties and his family.But the January 6 investigation has been the most personal for the lawmakers, most of whom were in the Capitol when Trump’s supporters stormed the building and interrupted the certification of Biden’s victory.“This committee is nearing the end of its work, but as a country we remain in strange and uncharted waters,” said the panel’s chairman, the Democrat Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, at the meeting on Monday to adopt the report and recommend criminal charges against Trump. “We’ve never had a president of the United States stir up a violent attempt to block the transfer of power. I believe nearly two years later, this is still a time of reflection and reckoning.”The transcripts released on Wednesday include interviews with Jeffrey Clark, a senior official in the Trump justice department who worked to advance Trump’s efforts to overturn the election, and John Eastman, a conservative lawyer and an architect of Trump’s last-ditch efforts to stay in office. Each invoked his fifth amendment right against self-incrimination.Also included in the release is testimony from witnesses associated with extremist groups that were involved in planning before the attack. The Oath Keepers founder, Stewart Rhodes, who was convicted last month of seditious conspiracy for his role in the planning, and the former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio both spoke to the committee. Tarrio and four other members of the extremist group are in court on similar charges this month.TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsDonald TrumpHouse of RepresentativesUS CongressnewsReuse this content More

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      Release of House January 6 report expected to pile more pressure on Trump – as it happened

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      The release of the final report of the January 6 House panel investigating Donald Trump’s insurrection will now probably take place on Thursday, according to “updated guidance” from the select committee.The panel says it “anticipates” the filing and release of the report tomorrow, the news coming in an email to media just now that adds: “the release of additional select committee records is possible today.”Committee chair Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, had been expected to present the report, which analysts say will run anywhere from 800 to thousands of pages in length, on the floor of the House of Representatives this afternoon. It is not yet clear what has caused the delay. As we won’t now see the final report tonight, it’s worth reminding ourselves of the key conclusions from Monday’s final meeting of the 18-month investigation. You can read Martin Pengelly’s report here:Five key conclusions from the January 6 panel’s final sessionRead moreHello again, US politics live blog readers, we’re closing this blog now but we’ll be back on Thursday for all the news, including the House select committee January 6 report and any developments on Capitol Hill as Congress scrambles to pass at $1.7tn government spending bill before the holidays.The Guardian has its separate global Ukraine live blog going that will be following the press conference at the White House with Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelenskiy. And there’ll be a special live blog launching seamlessly a bit later to cover the Ukrainian president’s address to the US Congress tonight.Here’s where things stand with US politics:
      The release of the final report of the January 6 House panel investigating Donald Trump’s insurrection will now probably take place on Thursday, according to “updated guidance” from the select committee.
      Democratic and Republican leaders in the Senate urged colleagues to pass the $1.7tn government spending package on Wednesday, as the omnibus bill that will keep the government running for a year nudged closer to becoming law.
      The US Senate has confirmed career diplomat Lynne Tracy as US ambassador to Russia.
      A Florida judge dumped by voters after a controversial abortion ruling that also earned him a formal rebuke for “abuse of judicial discretion” has won a key court appointment from the state’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis, according to a report.
      The release of the final report of the January 6 House panel investigating Donald Trump’s insurrection will now probably take place on Thursday, according to “updated guidance” from the select committee.The panel says it “anticipates” the filing and release of the report tomorrow, the news coming in an email to media just now that adds: “the release of additional select committee records is possible today.”Committee chair Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, had been expected to present the report, which analysts say will run anywhere from 800 to thousands of pages in length, on the floor of the House of Representatives this afternoon. It is not yet clear what has caused the delay. As we won’t now see the final report tonight, it’s worth reminding ourselves of the key conclusions from Monday’s final meeting of the 18-month investigation. You can read Martin Pengelly’s report here:Five key conclusions from the January 6 panel’s final sessionRead moreThe Democratic and Republican leaders in the Senate urged colleagues to pass the $1.7tn government spending package on Wednesday, as the omnibus bill that will keep the government running for a year nudged closer to becoming law.Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate majority leader, said passing the package, which includes $44.9bn in emergency assistance for Ukraine, and Nato allies, would be appropriate with the country’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Washington DC on Wednesday:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}By passing this omnibus and confirming a new ambassador, we can send President Zelenskiy back to Ukraine with the message that the Senate, the Congress and the American people stand unequivocally behind the people of Ukraine.
      We’re backing that up with real dollars and real resources.Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate minority leader, is attempting to stave off a rebellion from GOP senators upset they haven’t had time to digest the 4,155 pages of the bill, which was released in the early hours of Tuesday.He cited the $858bn military spending element of the package as reason to pass it:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}If Republicans controlled this chamber, we would have handled the appropriations process entirely differently from top to bottom.
      But given the reality of where we stand today, senators have two options this week, just two: we will either give our armed forces the resources and the certainty that they need, or we will deny it to them.Friday is the deadline for the bill to pass the Senate and House before parts of the government would have to shut down. Democrats also have incentive to get it through: Republicans will assume control of the House in January and could use a government shutdown to leverage political pressure on Joe Biden.The final report of the House January 6 select committee investigating Donald Trump’s insurrection will run to only 800 pages, the Associated Press reported on Wednesday, far fewer than expected.The news agency has published a preview of the report, which panel chair Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, is expected to present on the chamber floor imminently. Many analysts had expected it to run well beyond 1,000 pages, incorporating transcripts from interviews with hundreds of witnesses as well as appendices and other key documents.Here’s what the AP is saying:“An 800-page report set to be released by House investigators as soon as Wednesday will conclude that then-President Donald Trump criminally plotted to overturn his 2020 election defeat and ‘provoked his supporters to violence’ at the Capitol with false claims of widespread voter fraud.“The resulting January 6 insurrection of Trump’s followers threatened democracy with ‘horrific’ brutality toward law enforcement and ‘put the lives of American lawmakers at risk,’ according to the report’s executive summary.“‘The central cause of January 6th was one man, former president Donald Trump, who many others followed,’ reads the report from the House January 6 committee. ‘None of the events of January 6th would have happened without him’.”We’re watching proceedings in the House of Representatives, where Mississippi Democrat Bennie Thompson is expected to appear soon to present the final report of the January 6 select committee.There’s no sign of the panel’s chair yet, but a lot has happened since the House rose at 2pm. Speaker Nancy Pelosi isn’t there, and it was announced she’s passed over the gavel to a stand-in for the rest of the 117th Congress, meaning we won’t see her in the role again before she steps down when Republicans take over early next month.Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat, is urging colleagues to support a bill providing equal compensation for all amateur athletes representing the US. The Equal Pay for Team USA Act, would bring equity, he asserts.“The we treat our women athletes is a reflection of our nation’s values,” Nadler says.“All to often they receive unequal pay or conditions of employment simply because of their gender.”The House has now moved on to discussing an immigration bill relating to visas for transiting cruise ship crew members. It may be a while before we hear from Thompson.The Biden administration on Wednesday sanctioned Iran’s chief prosecutor, four other Iranian officials and a company that supports the country’s security forces for their roles in an ongoing violent crackdown on anti-government protests.According to the Associated Press, the treasury department is targeting the country’s prosecutor-general Mohammad Jafar Montazeri, two senior commanders in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards corps, and two members of the Basij, a paramilitary volunteer group that often enforces strict rules on dress and conduct.Also sanctioned is the Imen Sanat Zaman Fara Company, which produces armored vehicles and other equipment for the security forces.Iranian authorities have killed hundreds of peaceful protestors, including children, issued harsh sentences, including the death penalty following sham trials, and detained thousands. Today, we are sanctioning Iranian officials and an Iranian entity connected to these abuses.— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) December 21, 2022
      “We denounce the Iranian regime’s intensifying use of violence against its own people who are advocating for their human rights,” the department said in a statement, noting that Montazeri has presided over prosecutions of protesters some of whom have been executed or condemned to death.It identified the IRGC commanders as Hassan Hassanzadeh, head of its forces in Tehran, and Seyed Sadegh Hosseini, who runs its Beit-al Moghadas Corps of Kurdistan province. The two Basij members are the group’s deputy coordinator, Hossein Maroufi, and Moslem Moein, its cyberspace chief.Iran has been rocked by protests since the 16 September 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died after being detained by the morality police. The protests have since morphed into one of the most serious challenges to the theocracy installed by the 1979 Islamic Revolution.The Senate has confirmed career diplomat Lynne Tracy as US ambassador to Russia, the Associated Press reports.The 93-2 voted came just ahead of Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s historic visit to Washington DC on Wednesday, and his address to a joint session of Congress tonight.Tracy, currently US ambassador to Armenia, testified last month to the foreign relations committee, which advanced her nomination to the full Senate for today’s vote. The AP says her confirmation by an overwhelming majority will be seen as a reinforcement of the US commitment to war-torn Ukraine as it confronts Russian president Vladimir Putin’s invasion. Democratic Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said the new ambassador will be tasked with “standing up to Putin”.Edward Helmore reports from New York…E Jean Carroll, the magazine columnist who says she was raped by Donald Trump in the changing rooms of a New York department store in the mid-1990s, said in a legal deposition that following the alleged incident, the “music stopped” in her love life.Carroll said she did not develop any romantic relationships after the alleged encounter with Trump at Bergdorf Goodman, and said she had not had sex for almost 30 years.“Looking back on it, it may have been what happened at Bergdorf’s,” she said.Trump denies the incident and has denied knowing Carroll, calling the allegation “a complete con job”. The former president has also made derogatory remarks about Carroll, who he said was “not my type”.Carroll sued Trump for defamation, claiming his denial of the event and disparaging comments damaged her reputation. She recently expanded her claim to include rape via a new New York state law that allows those who allege sexual assault to sue beyond the statute of limitations.Trump’s deposition has not been released. A civil trial could come next year.Excerpts of Carroll’s testimony were made public on Tuesday.Full story here.Ed Pilkington’s 2019 interview with Carroll, here:‘I accused Donald Trump of sexual assault. Now I sleep with a loaded gun’Read moreOver on the Guardian US features desk, Michael Harriott has taken a look at the rightwing ‘war on woke’, the role it played in US politics in 2022 and what might be to come next year. The piece is well worth your time this lunchtime…Having vanquished the manufactured menaces of vaccine mandates, the gay agenda and widespread election fraud, Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, used his midterm election victory speech to position himself as a wartime leader. Now, he was preparing his constituents for the existential battle posed by their newest imaginary adversary: wokeness. In Churchillian tones, he announced: “We fight the woke in the legislature. We fight the woke in the schools. We fight the woke in the corporations. We will never, ever surrender to the woke mob. Florida is where woke goes to die.”DeSantis was summoning the resentment that produced the racial terrorism of Reconstruction, the pro-lynching Red Summer of 1919, and the pro-segregation states’ rights movement. This time, it was called anti-woke: a modern-day mixture of McCarthyism and white grievance.In 2021, the right became increasingly irate at what it described as “wokeness” but which tended to mean any attempt to engage in civil rights or social justice. In 2022, anti-woke became an ideology in itself, an attempt for the right to rebrand bigotry as a resistance movement.Read on…War on wokeness: the year the right rallied around a made-up menaceRead moreWorrying news for Kevin McCarthy, the Republican House minority leader trying to secure the speaker’s gavel but having a hard time satisfying the far right of the party: according to Politico, a plan is forming to have Steve Scalise, currently McCarthy’s righthand man, step in if the Californian cannot seal the deal.According to the website, “a group of lawmakers has quietly approached” Scalise “about running should McCarthy falter, according to multiple GOP members and aides..css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Their message? ‘Steve, just be ready,’ according to one member currently backing McCarthy who spoke to us late last night on condition of anonymity. Scalise was uncontested in his bid for majority leader in the new Congress, the lawmaker noted, and ‘could be a good consensus leader if things don’t go well for Kevin’.Politico stresses that Scalise is in a “tough spot”, as “there’s a general consensus that if McCarthy falters, anyone with fingerprints on the knife would alienate the GOP conference and upend their own possible ascent”.But the site also says “some of the conservatives opposing McCarthy have privately relayed the same message” about running should McCarthy falter “to the affable Louisianan in recent days … while they’ve reiterated the same demands that have been laid out for McCarthy, they have signaled” – not least in comments to the New York Post by the Florida rightwinger Matt Gaetz – that they see Scalise as a more palatable option.”So far, so House of Cards. And there’s more, of course. Politico reports that while Scalise “has not been organising support or making calls for a potential run [and] his office declined to comment, instead pointing to the dozens of public statements he has made endorsing McCarthy and insisting he would never run against him”, Scalise has “kept a low profile and has been in what one ally called ‘listening mode’”.The site quoted a “person close to Scalise” as saying: “Does he want to be speaker? Absolutely. But is he going to screw Kevin? Absolutely not.”Some further reading about “the affable Louisianan”:Steve Scalise says attending white supremacist conference was a ‘mistake’Read moreThe former lawyer for a key witness at the January 6 committee hearings, whom the panel says influenced his client’s testimony, is pushing back against the accusation, and taken a leave of absence to do so, the New York Times reports.Sources say Stefan Passantino, a former deputy White House counsel and ethics lawyer under Donald Trump, was being paid by a Trump political action committee as he was advising Cassidy Hutchinson, former aide to chief of staff Mark Meadows.Hutchinson gave some of the most revealing and dramatic testimony to the panel about Trump’s behavior during his insurrection, after she dropped Passantino and hired new legal representation.Passantino took a leave of absence from Milwaukee law firm Michael Best, the Times reports, the lawyer citing his involvement with the controversy as “a distraction”. By Wednesday his profile had disappeared from the company’s website.In its summary on Monday, the House committee did not mention Passantino or Hutchinson by name, but claimed a lawyer had influenced a witness to give false testimony, or at least to “forget” important testimony they were prepared to give.The Times says Passantino issued a statement insisting he had represented Hutchinson, as he had other clients, “honorably, ethically, and fully consistent with her sole interests as she communicated them to me”.The House panel’s full report will will released imminently.Ahead of the release of the January 6 report later today, Lawrence Douglas says the committee has done the right thing in making criminal referrals to the Department of Justice – and the DoJ must now move to prosecute Donald Trump.Over the course of 18 months, the intrepid patriots on the House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection tirelessly researched Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election through fraud, intimidation, harassment and violence. The committee’s public hearings were an exercise in civic education, presenting the nation with a gripping, granular and truthful account of an unhinged president seeking to cling to power at all costs. Now they have gone one crucial step further. They have referred the matter to the justice department, urging that Trump be prosecuted..css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Let us take stock of this astonishing moment. For the first time in American history, a congressional committee has recommended that a former president be criminally prosecuted – and not just for any crimes.
      The chief crimes at the heart of the referral – inciting insurrection, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and obstructing an official act of Congress – involve nothing short of an elaborate effort to frustrate and upend the peaceful transfer of presidential power, the bedrock of our constitutional democracy.The referral powerfully reminds us that the assault on the Capitol was not a spontaneous spasm of violence. It was the culmination of a concerted effort to reject the results of a fair election, an effort that began on election day itself, when it became clear that Trump was headed to certain defeat.Read on:The January 6 committee is right. It’s time to prosecute the kingpin, Trump | Lawrence DouglasRead moreA Florida judge dumped by voters after a controversial abortion ruling that also earned him a formal rebuke for “abuse of judicial discretion” has won a key court appointment from the state’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis, the Miami Herald reports.Former Hillsborough county circuit judge Jared Smith denied a 17-year-old girl access to an abortion in January, citing her low school grades as justification for his ruling that she lacked the maturity to make the decision for herself.His order was reversed in a 2-1 ruling by an appeals court that said Smith abused judicial discretion, the Herald reports, and his re-election bid was subsequently rejected by Hillsborough voters in August.DeSantis, however, is unwilling to let Smith go. According to the newspaper, the rightwing governor, who signed a 15-week abortion ban into Florida law and has hinted at his approval for a more restrictive “heartbeat ban”, appointed Smith to one of the three vacancies on the newly created 6th district court of appeal. His appointment takes effect on 1 January.Nancy Pelosi says Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy will address a joint session of Congress at 7.30pm Wednesday.In a tweet, the Speaker says Zelenskiy’s “courageous, patriotic, indefatigable leadership has rallied not only his people, but the world, to join the frontlines of the fight for freedom. We look forward to hearing his inspiring message of unity, resilience and determination”.It is with immense respect and admiration for his extraordinary leadership that I extend on behalf of bipartisan Congressional leadership an invitation for @ZelenskyyUa to address a Joint Meeting of Congress at 7:30 p.m. E.T. tonight.— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) December 21, 2022
      A reminder that you can find coverage of Zelenskiy’s historic visit to Washington DC, including his Oval Office meeting with Joe Biden, on our live Ukraine blog here:Russia-Ukraine war live: Zelenskiy heads to US as Putin promises to improve nuclear combat readinessRead moreHere’s an unexpected turn of events. After a single term of office defined by aggression, confrontation, bombast and abuse, Donald Trump left a “shockingly gracious” letter for Joe Biden at the White House. Martin Pengelly reports:Donald Trump wrote a “shockingly gracious” letter to Joe Biden on leaving office, a new book says, amid the unprecedented disgrace of a second impeachment for inciting the deadly Capitol attack as part of his attempt to overturn Biden’s election victory and hold on to power.According to excerpts published by Politico on Tuesday, The Fight of His Life: Inside Joe Biden’s White House, by Chris Whipple, captures Biden saying of Trump’s note: “That was very gracious and generous … Shockingly gracious.”Presidents traditionally leave letters for their successors. George HW Bush’s note for Bill Clinton is generally held up as an ideal of civility between presidents from different parties.After Bush died, Clinton wrote in the Washington Post that the letter revealed “the heart of who he was … an honorable, gracious and decent man who believed in the United States, our constitution, our institutions and our shared future”.Trump refuses to admit Biden beat him fairly, faces extensive legal jeopardy for his election subversion attempts, and recently called for the constitution to be “terminated” so he could return to power.Biden has said Trump’s letter was “very generous” but he has not shared its contents. According to Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, authors of the book Peril, on discovering the note in the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, Biden “put it in his pocket and did not share it with his advisers”.Whipple’s book will be published in January. He told Politico writing it was “tough, because … this is the most battened-down, disciplined, leak-proof White House in modern times”.Read the full story:Trump left ‘shockingly gracious’ letter to Biden on leaving office, book saysRead moreIt’s a hugely significant day in Washington DC, where Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy is visiting Joe Biden, and will address Congress this evening.I hope you’re having a good flight, Volodymyr. I’m thrilled to have you here. Much to discuss. https://t.co/SsRdsAnSDb— President Biden (@POTUS) December 21, 2022
      We’ll be following all the developments in the Guardian’s live Ukraine blog, which you can find here:Russia-Ukraine war live: Zelenskiy heads to US as Putin promises to improve nuclear combat readinessRead moreAmong the revelations to come from Tuesday’s House ways and means committee meeting, which voted to publicly release Donald Trump’s tax returns, was the bombshell that the IRS had failed to failed to conduct mandatory audits on the president during the first two years of his administration.The Associated Press has the details:The US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) failed to pursue mandatory audits of Donald Trump on a timely basis during his presidency, a congressional committee found on Tuesday, raising questions about statements by the former president and members of his administration who claimed he could not release his tax filings because of such ongoing reviews.A report by the Democratic majority on the House ways and means committee indicated the Trump administration may have disregarded an IRS requirement dating to 1977 that mandates audits of a president’s tax filings. The IRS only began to audit Trump’s 2016 tax filings on 3 April 2019, more than two years into his presidency and months after Democrats took the House. That date coincides with Richard Neal, the panel chairman, asking the IRS for information related to Trump’s tax returns.Required IRS audits of former President Donald Trump were delayed, according to a report issued by a Democratic-controlled House committee.A separate report suggested Trump paid a relatively modest share of his income to the federal government. https://t.co/m8y4Z2bJkE— The Associated Press (@AP) December 21, 2022
      There was no suggestion Trump, who has announced a third presidential run, sought to directly influence the IRS or discourage it from reviewing his tax information. But the report found that the audit process was “dormant, at best”.The 29-page report was published hours after the committee voted on party lines to release Trump’s tax returns, raising the potential of additional revelations related to the finances of a businessman who broke political norms by refusing to voluntarily release his returns as he sought the presidency. The vote was the culmination of a years-long fight between Trump and Democrats, from the campaign trail to Congress and the supreme court.Democrats on the ways and means committee argued that transparency and the rule of law were at stake. Republicans said the release would set a dangerous precedent.“This is about the presidency, not the president,” Neal told reporters.Kevin Brady, the panel’s top Republican, said: “Over our objections in opposition, Democrats have unleashed a dangerous new political weapon that overturns decades of privacy protections. The era of political targeting, and of Congress’s enemies list, is back and every American, every American taxpayer, who may get on the wrong side of the majority in Congress is now at risk.”Trump spent much of Tuesday releasing statements unrelated to his tax returns. The IRS did not immediately comment. An accompanying report released by the nonpartisan joint committee on taxation also found repeated faults with the IRS approach to auditing Trump and his companies.IRS agents did not bring in specialists to assess the complicated structure of Trump’s holdings. They also determined limited examination was warranted because Trump hired an accounting firm they assumed would make sure Trump “properly reports all income and deduction items correctly”.Read more:IRS failed to conduct timely mandatory audits of Trump’s taxes while presidentRead moreThe final report of the House January 6 committee that’s been investigating Donald Trump’s insurrection for the last 18 months will drop today. And it’s unlikely to make very palatable reading for the former president.The document, running to more than 1,000 pages, will put flesh on the bones of Trump’s plotting and scheming to stay in power after his 2020 election defeat. Those efforts landed him a referral to the justice department for four criminal charges.And it comes on the heels of Tuesday night’s vote by the House ways and means committee to publicly release up to six years of his tax returns, documents Trump had fought for three years to keep secret.We already knew, including from a series of televised hearings on the January 6 panel this year, many of the details of the insurrection. Trump incited a mob that overran the US Capitol on January 6 2021 seeking to halt the certification of Joe Biden’s victory; tried to manipulate states’ election results in his favor; and attempted to install slates of “fake electors” to reverse Biden’s win in Congress.But what we’ll see today is the deepest of dives into his efforts: the panel interviewed countless witnesses and reviewed thousands of documents and hundreds of hours of video evidence to compile the report and make recommendations.They include referrals to the House ethics committee for four Trump allies in Congress who refused to submit to the panel’s subpoenas to give evidence.We’re expecting the report to feature eight main chapters, detailed below, plus appendices that capture more aspects of the investigation, and findings from all of the select committee’s five investigative teams.We’ll bring you details when it drops.
      Donald Trump’s effort to sow distrust in the results of the election.
      The then-president’s pressure on state governments or legislatures to overturn victories by Joe Biden.
      Trump campaign efforts to send fake, pro-Trump electors to Washington from states won by Biden.
      Trump’s push to deploy the justice department in service of his election scheme.
      The pressure campaign by Trump and his lawyers against then-vice president Mike Pence.
      Trump’s effort to summon supporters to Washington who later fueled the 6 January mob.
      The 187 minutes of chaos during which Trump refused to tell rioters to leave the Capitol.
      An analysis of the attack on the Capitol.
      Good morning US politics blog readers, and welcome to what promises to be a hectic Wednesday. Donald Trump’s not-very-good week rolls into a third day with publication of the final report of the House January 6 committee that’s been investigating his insurrection for the last 18 months.We learned the essentials through a final public meeting and executive summary on Monday, when the bipartisan panel referred the former president for four criminal charges. But the final report, at more than 1,000 pages, will be a much deeper dive into Trump’s scheming to reverse his 2020 election defeat to Joe Biden.We’ll bring you the details when we receive it.Here’s what else we’re watching:
      There’s ongoing fallout from last night’s vote by the House ways and means committee to publicly release six years of Trump’s tax returns.
      Joe Biden and Washington lawmakers are preparing for Wednesday’s historic visit from Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, his first trip outside his country since it was invaded by Russia 10 months ago. Biden meets his counterpart at 2.30pm, followed by a joint press conference.
      Hakeem Jeffries, the incoming Democratic House minority leader, and congresswoman Suzan DelBene, nominee for head of the party’s congressional campaign committee, host a press briefing at 1pm on plans to retake the majority in 2024. More

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      From Liz Cheney to Donald Trump: winners and losers from the January 6 hearings

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      AnalysisFrom Liz Cheney to Donald Trump: winners and losers from the January 6 hearingsMartin PengellyAs the House January 6 committee is set to publish its report, here are some of the key standouts07:50The House January 6 committee is set to publish its report on the attack on the Capitol that shocked both America and the world . After a year of dramatic hearings and bombshell testimony, here are some of the key winners and losers to emerge from its work.Liz CheneyWho: Wyoming Republican congresswoman, with Adam Kinzinger of Illinois one of two GOP members of the committee.Winner or loser: Winner.Why: As vice-chair to Bennie Thompson, a Democrat who began his political career in Mississippi under Jim Crow, the Wyoming Republican and daughter of ex-vice-president and neocon’s neocon Dick Cheney helped bring genuine bipartisan spirit to the committee’s proceedings. Once the committee was in session, Cheney emerged as its star prosecutor. Witheringly focused, she rode losing her own seat in Congress to a Trump-backed challenger in August to keep her eyes on the prize: establishing Trump’s culpability for January 6 and stopping him ever returning to power.Jamie RaskinWho: Democratic Maryland congressman and professor of constitutional law who endured the attack on Congress shortly after losing his son.Winner or loser: Winner.Why: To vastly oversimplify (and not to discount the other committee members), if Cheney was the star prosecutor, Raskin was the best defense attorney the constitution, Congress and even the Capitol building could have, launching heartfelt appeals to the spirit of American democracy while making clear the enormity of the crime in hand. Never far from a reference to Abraham Lincoln or the founders, Raskin provided perhaps a softer public face than Cheney, but one no less determined.Cassidy HutchinsonWho: Former aide to Mark Meadows, Trump’s last chief of staff, and special assistant to the president.Winner or loser: Winner.01:42Why: In taped testimony and in person, Hutchinson described Trump’s approval of chants from Capitol rioters about hanging his vice-president, Mike Pence, and attempts by Republicans in Congress to have Trump issue pardons before leaving office. She added details of the behavior of Trump, Meadows, Rudy Giuliani and other key figures before January 6 and throughout that day. Among extraordinary scenes described by Hutchinson: Trump lunging for the wheel of his vehicle when told he could not go to the Capitol with his supporters; Trump throwing food at the White House walls; and Meadows refusing to do anything at all to rein in his boss.Mike PenceWho: Trump’s vice-president, who rejected the idea he could stop certification of election results.Winner or loser: Winner.Why: The panel seemed to make a political decision to portray Trump’s doggedly loyal vice-president as a hero, for not supporting the scheme to overturn Joe Biden’s win. Pence did seek counsel as to whether he could do what was asked but he did not do it and faced real danger at the Capitol as the mob shouted for him to be hanged and gallows went up outside. Since the hearings, Pence has continued to shape his likely challenge to Trump for the Republican nomination in 2024, conducting a fearsome balancing act: discussing his role in stopping Trump’s assault on democracy while evincing pride in what he says the Trump administration achieved before it.J Michael LuttigWho: Conservative judge who advised Pence he had no power to stop certification.Winner or loser: Winner.02:17Why: Luttig delivered devastating testimony with undoubted authority – and a chilling warning. “A stake was driven through the heart of American democracy on January 6, 2021,” he said, adding: “Almost two years after that fateful day … Donald Trump and his allies and supporters are a clear and present danger.” That, he said, was “because to this very day the former president and his allies and supporters pledge that in the presidential election of 2024, if the former president or his anointed successor as the Republican party presidential candidate were to lose that election, they would attempt to overturn that 2024 election in the same way they attempted to overturn the 2020 election, but succeed in 2024 where they failed in 2020.”John EastmanWho: Conservative law professor who claimed certification could be stopped.Winner or loser: Loser More

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      IRS failed to conduct timely mandatory audits of Trump’s taxes while president

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      IRS failed to conduct timely mandatory audits of Trump’s taxes while presidentInternal Revenue Service only began audit after prompting from Congress in 2019, House ways and means committee indicates US tax authorities failed to audit Donald Trump for two years while he was in the White House, Democratic lawmakers said, despite a program that makes tax review of sitting presidents compulsory.House committee votes to release Trump’s tax returns to the publicRead moreThe claim, in a report issued by Democrats on the House ways and means committee voting to release six years of Trump’s tax returns, raises questions over statements made by Trump and members of his administration that he could not release his tax returns, a convention for aspiring and sitting presidents, because he was undergoing an Internal Revenue Service audit.The new report suggests US tax authorities only began to audit Trump’s 2016 tax filings in 2019, more than two years into his presidency. The audit, a requirement dating back to the Nixon administration, came only after Democrats took control of the House and requested Trump’s tax information.“This a major failure of the IRS under the prior administration and certainly not what we had hoped to find,” said Richard Neal, the Democratic ways and means chairman.Nancy Pelosi, the outgoing House speaker, praised the committee’s work. She said it revealed an “urgent need” for legislation to ensure accountability and transparency during the audit of a sitting president’s tax returns, “not only in the case of President Trump, but for any president”.Despite a six-year, cat-and-mouse dispute over Trump’s taxes, an issue that reached the supreme court, the committee made no suggestion that Trump sought to lean on the IRS or discourage it from reviewing his paperwork.“What happened?” Steven Rosenthal, a senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, told the Associated Press. “If it was not resolved, the IRS stalled. If it was resolved in Trump’s favor, then maybe the IRS rolled over and played dead. That’s what we have to find out.”The 29-page report, which found that the audit process was “dormant at best”, was published hours after the committee voted to release Trump’s returns, which are now being examined.Democrats argue that transparency and the rule of law are at stake. Republicans maintain that the release of Trump’s records sets a dangerous precedent.“Over our objections in opposition, Democrats have unleashed a dangerous new political weapon that overturns decades of privacy protections,” said Kevin Brady, the top Republican on the ways and means committee.“The era of political targeting, and of Congress’s enemies list, is back and every American, every American taxpayer, who may get on the wrong side of the majority in Congress is now at risk.”Trump has had a bad week. On Monday, the bipartisan January 6 committee voted to make a criminal referral to the justice department for Trump’s role in inciting the Capitol attack and attempting to overturn the election. The referral is not binding on prosecutors, who are conducting their own investigation.Earlier this month, the Trump Organization was convicted on tax fraud charges related to helping senior executives dodge income taxes on perks. The Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, has said Trump and his business are still under investigation.Trump’s tax records amount to thousands of pages and may take days to be made public as the committee works to redacted sensitive details.Trump made up audit excuse for not releasing tax returns on the fly, new book saysRead morePublication may not answer the question of why Trump fought vigorously not to release his returns.The New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman has reported that Trump simply made up his audit claim while on his campaign plane in 2016. The same paper found that Trump was facing an audit potentially tied to a $72.9m tax refund arising from $700m in losses he claimed in 2009 and that he had rolled over those losses to collect tax benefits on income for the subsequent nine years.The dispute over Trump’s tax returns speaks to a larger fight over the IRS. Democrats argue it is ill-equipped to audit high-income, complex tax returns, and instead targets filers in lower-income brackets.Democrats on the House ways and means committee are proposing legislation to beef up the IRS and to require a report no later three months from the filing of any president’s tax returns.Republicans plan to cut recent increases in funding to the IRS when they take the House majority in January.TopicsDonald TrumpHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsUS taxationnewsReuse this content More

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      What Really Saved the Democrats This Year?

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      In the Democratic Party, despite its better-than-expected showing in the 2022 midterm elections, internecine combat has been playing out in disputes over the party’s nominees and the policies they propose. At the nuts-and-bolts level of candidate selection, the debate has become intensely emotional and increasingly hostile.Strategists in the progressive wing of the party call centrists “corporate sellouts.” Centrists, in turn, accuse progressives of alienating voters by promoting an extremist cultural and law enforcement agenda.I asked Liam Kerr, co-founder of the centrist Welcome PAC, for his views on state of the intraparty debate. He emailed back:Far-left political science deniers refuse to accept the fact that moderate candidates still outperform those at the extremes. While there may be fewer swing voters now, the closeness of elections maximizes their importance. All the data points to moderate outperformance — from political science research to election results to common sense.Take the Dec. 16 analysis of the 2022 election by another centrist group, Third Way, “Comparing the Performance of Mainstream v. Far-Left Democrats in the House”: “Far-left groups like Sanders-style Our Revolution and AOC’s Justice Democrats constantly argue that the more left the candidate, the better chance of winning, saying their candidates will energize base voters and deliver victory,” Lanae Erickson, Lucas Holtz and Maya Jones of Third Way wrote.In an effort to test the claim of progressive groups, they note, “We conducted case studies analyzing districts with comparable partisan leans and demographically similar makeups to discern how Democratic congressional candidates endorsed by the center-left New Democrat Action Fund (NewDems) performed in the 2022 midterm elections versus those endorsed by far-left organizations.”Their results:In total, NewDems flipped seven seats from red to blue, picked up two critical wins in new seats, and helped elect 18 new members to Congress in the 2022 midterm elections. The NewDems Fund has now flipped 42 seats from red to blue since 2018, while Our Revolution and Justice Democrats have not managed to flip a single Republican-held seat over the last three cycles.I asked Joseph Geevarghese, the executive director of Our Revolution, if the organization had flipped any House seats from red to blue. He replied by email:This was not the goal of Our Revolution. Our Revolution’s goal in the 2022 elections was to push the Democratic Caucus in a progressive direction, and we succeeded with nine new members joining the ranks of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.In part because of Our Revolution’s support, he continued:The Congressional Progressive Caucus is growing by nine newly elected members, all of whom were endorsed by Our Revolution. That includes: Summer Lee, Greg Casar, Delia Ramirez, Maxwell Frost, Becca Balint, Andrea Salinas, Jasmine Crockett, Jonathan Jackson, and Val Hoyle. Our Revolution’s success didn’t include just those running for Congress. Our Revolution’s success expanded to local races including St. Louis Board of Alderman President-elect Megan Green, whose victory creates a blue island in a state that is a sea of red.Waleed Shahid, communications director for Justice Democrats, emailed in response to a similar inquiry of mine that his group does not focus on shifting seats from red to blue: “We haven’t run really races in those areas. We’ve been focused on blue seats where the incumbent is corporate-backed and out of touch with their district.”Instead, Shahid wrote: “After the 2022 election cycle, the Congressional Progressive Caucus stated the incoming membership is the largest in its history at 103 members. The top three leaders are also all Justice Democrats: Rep. Pramila Jayapal as chair; Rep. Ilhan Omar as deputy chair; and Rep.-elect Greg Casar as whip.”In addition, Shahid argued, “Progressives have a lot to do with Democrats’ ambitious agenda under President Biden. Our work at Justice Democrats engaging in competitive primaries, win or lose, has been a big part of it — moving Democratic incumbents on key issues.”If, Shahid contended, “you think of politicians as balloons tied to the rock of public opinion, then progressives have substantially moved the rock,” adding thatmoderates have shifted in turn. John Fetterman and Raphael Warnock are not the same kind of Third Way moderates that might have run in purple states in the pre-Trump era. They embrace reproductive rights, bold climate action, a $15 minimum wage, eliminating the filibuster, student debt cancellation, and immigrant rights — things many moderates ran away from in the Obama era. The center of the party has shifted closer to the base and away from the consensus among Washington and Wall Street donors.While this debate may appear arcane, the dispute involves two different visions of the Democratic Party, one of a governing party guided by the principles of consensus and restraint, the other of a party that represents insurgent, marginalized constituencies and consistently challenges the establishment.Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, was adamant in his criticism of Third Way, declaring in an email: “Every cycle, Third Way cooks the books with a false accounting of how races were run and won.”Green continued:The truth is: In swing seat after swing seat, Democrats won by running on economic populist positions that have long been supported by progressives and opposed by corporate Democrats — such as protecting and expanding Social Security benefits and fighting the pharmaceutical companies and Wall Street banks that fund Third Way. If there was one thing that caused Democrats to unnecessarily lose races this year, it was corporate Democrats like Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema and Josh Gottheimer blocking the president’s economic agenda for a year so that the impact of things like lower-price prescriptions were not felt by voters in time for the election.Green objected to Third Way’s comparison of the results of the New Democrat Coalition PAC, which has official standing with the House, with the result of such outside groups as Justice Democrats and Our Revolution.If, however, the endorsees of the New Democrat Coalition are compared with the endorsees of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, the New Democrat Coalition PAC candidates flipped a total of 42 seats from red to blue, 32 in 2018, three in 2020 and seven in 2022, while the candidates endorsed by the Congressional Progressive Caucus flipped a total of eight over the three cycles, all in 2018, according to officials of both groups. The Progressive Caucus and the New Democrat Coalition have roughly equal numbers of members.Joe Dinkin, of the Working Families Party, dismissed the Third Way study as the “conclusions of the corporate flank of the Democratic Party” that have been subject to “very little scrutiny.”In the newly elected Congress, Dinkin wrote:This will be the most progressive Democratic caucus in memory, if not ever. 16 of the new 34 Democratic members of Congress were backed by the Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC. The Congressional Progressive Caucus will have 103 members, or roughly 48 percent of the entirety of the Democratic caucus — a roughly 50 percent increase over the last decade.Dinkin continued:Centrist incumbents saw some significant losses. Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chair Sean Patrick Maloney, a leading moderate, decided after redistricting to run in the bluer NY-17 over his former NY-18, a tougher district which included most of his former constituents, even though it meant leaving the incumbent Democrat in NY-17 without a district. Maloney lost that bluer seat. The Democrat who ran in NY-18, the redder seat SPM abandoned, was Pat Ryan — he won, and won with crucial support from the Working Families Party. Several other incumbent moderates lost their seats too, like former Republican and Blue Dog Tom O’Halleran.The intraparty debate boils down to a choice between two goals.If the objective is strengthening the left in the Democratic House Caucus, the way to achieve that goal is to nominate the most progressive candidate running in the primary. On that score, the size of the Congressional Progressive Caucus has grown, since its founding in 1991, to 103 members (as noted above). Overall, the composition of the Democratic electorate continues to shift to the left as have the votes of House Democrats, albeit slightly.If winning more seats is the top priority, the preponderance of evidence suggests that nominating moderate, centrist candidates in districts where Republicans have a chance of winning is the more effective strategy, with the caveat that a contemporary moderate is substantially more liberal than the moderate of two decades ago.Most — though by no means all — scholarly work supports the view that moderate candidates in competitive districts are more likely to win.Zachary F. Peskowitz, a political scientist at Emory, argued in an email:Candidates who are ideologically aligned with their constituencies will win more votes, on average, than relatively extreme candidates. If your goal is to win majorities in the House and the Senate, nominating moderate candidates in the most competitive districts and states — where the majority will be determined — is the best way to do it. If, instead, your goal is to push elite discourse in a liberal direction and are less concerned about immediately winning a governing majority, then nominating extremist candidates is a reasonable approach.Contrary to the argument that a more progressive candidate can mobilize base voters, Peskowitz argued that “nominating extremist candidates might increase turnout, but not enough to compensate for ceding moderates’ votes to your opponent. Moreover, there is a risk that an extremist will also mobilize the opposition to turn out to vote.”In sum, Peskowitz wrote:Progressive-aligned candidates who won the primaries in competitive districts or states did not fare well in the general election. Mandela Barnes lost the Wisconsin Senate contest to incumbent Ron Johnson and ran behind Wisconsin’s other statewide Democratic nominees. Josh Riley lost New York’s 19th Congressional District and Jamie McLeod-Skinner, the only progressive Democrat who successfully dethroned a Democratic incumbent in this cycle’s primaries, lost Oregon’s 5th Congressional District. Summer Lee in Pennsylvania’s 12th Congressional District was the one example of a progressive endorsed non-incumbent who won a seat that wasn’t a Democratic lock. Moderate Democratic candidates, such as Abigail Spanberger and Haley Stevens, performed strongly, holding on to seats in challenging districts.Andrew B. Hall, a political scientist at Stanford, has examined the debate over moderate-versus-progressive candidates extensively, including in a 2018 paper with Daniel M. Thompson, a political scientist at U.C.L.A., “Who Punishes Extremist Nominees? Candidate Ideology and Turning Out the Base in U.S. Elections.”Hall and Thompson write: “We find that extremist nominees — as measured by the mix of campaign contributions they receive — suffer electorally, largely because they decrease their party’s share of turnout in the general election, skewing the electorate towards their opponent’s party.”“Turnout,” they add, “appears to be the dominant force in determining election outcomes, but it advantages ideologically moderate candidates because extremists appear to activate the opposing party’s base more than their own.”Hall and Thompson compared general election results from 2006 to 2014 in House races that involved close primary contests between a moderate and a more extreme candidate. They found that instead of lifting turnout, there were “strong, negative effects of extremist nominees on their party’s share of turnout in the general election.” Extremist nominees, they observed, “depress their party’s share of turnout in the general election, on average.”Hall and Thompson conclude that it is moderates who have a turnout advantage in general elections. They make two points.First, “We have found consistent evidence that extremist nominees do poorly in general elections in large part because they skew turnout in the general election away from their own party and in favor of the opposing party.”And second, “Much of moderate candidates’ success may actually be due to the turnout of partisan voters, rather than to swing voters who switch sides. In fact, our regression discontinuity estimates are consistent with the possibility that the bulk of the vote-share penalty to extremist nominees is the result of changes in partisan turnout.”An earlier study, from 2010, “Securing the Base: Electoral Competition Under Variable Turnout,” by Michael Peress, a political scientist at Stony Brook University, produced similar results: “My results indicate that the candidates can best compete by adopting centrist positions. While a candidate can increase turnout among his supporters by moving away from the center, many moderate voters will defect to his opponent.”Matt Grossmann, a political scientist at Michigan State University, agreed that “moderate candidates perform better in general elections,” but, he added, “that advantage is declining as baseline partisanship drives most results regardless of candidates. Because we have national partisan parity, small candidate advantages can still be important.”The moderation factor, Grossman wrote by email, “was more pronounced on the Republican side because Republicans ran more extreme candidates and those candidates had less experience. There continues to be no evidence in either party that extreme candidates mobilize their side more than they mobilize the other side or turn off swing voters.”The Democratic strategist Ruy Teixeira, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a longtime critic of the Democrats’ progressive wing, contends in a recent essay, “Ten Reasons Why Democrats Should Become More Moderate,” that adoption of an extreme progressive stance is not only “dead wrong,” but also that “Democrats need to fully and finally reject it if they hope to break the current electoral stalemate in their favor.”In the 2022 election, Teixeira writes,the reason why Democrats did relatively well was support from independents and Republican leaning or supporting crossover voters — not base voters mobilized by progressivism. These independents and crossover voters were motivated to support Democrats where they did because many Democrats in key races were perceived as being more moderate than their extremist Republican opponents.According to Teixeira:As the Democratic Party has moved to the left over the last four years, they have actually done worse among their base voters. They’ve lost a good chunk of their support among nonwhite voters, especially Hispanics, and among young voters. Since 2018, Democratic support is down 18 margin points among young (18-29 year old) voters, 20 points among nonwhites and 23 points among nonwhite working class (noncollege) voters. These voters are overwhelmingly moderate to conservative in orientation and they’re just not buying what the Democrats are selling.Teixeira’s final point:Democrats shouldn’t be afraid to embrace patriotism and dissociate themselves from those who insist America is a benighted, racist nation and always has been. Large majorities of Americans, while they have no objection to looking at both the bad and good of American history, reject such a one-sided, negative characterization. That includes many voters whose support Democrats desperately need but who are now drifting away from them.A postelection analysis conducted by officials of Impact Research, the firm that polls for President Biden, provides further support for a moderate strategy by emphasizing the crucial importance in the 2022 contest of winning support from independent voters.In their Dec. 7 study, “How Democrats Prevented a Red Wave,” John Anzalone, founder of Impact, and Matt Hogan, a partner, wrote:That Democrats’ win over independents was critical since Republicans appear to have bested them in turnout based on both finalized geographic data and exit polls. The latter found that Republicans had a 3- to 4-point advantage in party ID and that each party won about 95 percent of their own partisans. It was therefore Democrats’ performance with independents, not turnout, that helped prevent a red wave.A key factor in Democrats’ ability to win over independents, according to Anzalone and Hogan,was that these voters wanted more bipartisanship and felt Democratic candidates were more likely to deliver it. By an 11-point margin (53 percent to 42 percent), voters preferred a candidate who would “work in a bipartisan manner and compromise” over one who would “stay true to their beliefs.” Among independents, the preference for bipartisanship more than doubled to 24 points. Democrats benefited from this desire by winning the voters who preferred a bipartisan approach by a 30-point margin.As a practical matter, the debate between proponents of moderation and proponents of progressivism may be less of a dilemma for the Democratic Party than an ongoing process in which the party, its voters and its elected officials move leftward, often turbulently. At the same time, the Democratic Party has a storied history of cannibalizing its own — and Republicans are catching up quickly. It is getting harder to see a peaceable and productive resolution between the two parties or inside them.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Release of House January 6 report expected to pile more pressure on Trump – live

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      The final report of the House January 6 committee that’s been investigating Donald Trump’s insurrection for the last 18 months will drop today. And it’s unlikely to make very palatable reading for the former president.The document, running to more than 1,000 pages, will put flesh on the bones of Trump’s plotting and scheming to stay in power after his 2020 election defeat. Those efforts landed him a referral to the justice department for four criminal charges.And it comes on the heels of Tuesday night’s vote by the House ways and means committee to publicly release up to six years of his tax returns, documents Trump had fought for three years to keep secret.We already knew, including from a series of televised hearings on the January 6 panel this year, many of the details of the insurrection. Trump incited a mob that overran the US Capitol on January 6 2021 seeking to halt the certification of Joe Biden’s victory; tried to manipulate states’ election results in his favor; and attempted to install slates of “fake electors” to reverse Biden’s win in Congress.But what we’ll see today is the deepest of dives into his efforts: the panel interviewed countless witnesses and reviewed thousands of documents and hundreds of hours of video evidence to compile the report and make recommendations.They include referrals to the House ethics committee for four Trump allies in Congress who refused to submit to the panel’s subpoenas to give evidence.We’re expecting the report to feature eight main chapters, detailed below, plus appendices that capture more aspects of the investigation, and findings from all of the select committee’s five investigative teams.We’ll bring you details when it drops.
      Donald Trump’s effort to sow distrust in the results of the election.
      The then-president’s pressure on state governments or legislatures to overturn victories by Joe Biden.
      Trump campaign efforts to send fake, pro-Trump electors to Washington from states won by Biden.
      Trump’s push to deploy the justice department in service of his election scheme.
      The pressure campaign by Trump and his lawyers against then-vice president Mike Pence.
      Trump’s effort to summon supporters to Washington who later fueled the 6 January mob.
      The 187 minutes of chaos during which Trump refused to tell rioters to leave the Capitol.
      An analysis of the attack on the Capitol.
      It’s a hugely significant day in Washington DC, where Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy is visiting Joe Biden, and will address Congress this evening.I hope you’re having a good flight, Volodymyr. I’m thrilled to have you here. Much to discuss. https://t.co/SsRdsAnSDb— President Biden (@POTUS) December 21, 2022
      We’ll be following all the developments in the Guardian’s live Ukraine blog, which you can find here:Russia-Ukraine war live: Zelenskiy heads to US as Putin promises to improve nuclear combat readinessRead moreAmong the revelations to come from Tuesday’s House ways and means committee meeting, which voted to publicly release Donald Trump’s tax returns, was the bombshell that the IRS had failed to failed to conduct mandatory audits on the president during the first two years of his administration.The Associated Press has the details:The US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) failed to pursue mandatory audits of Donald Trump on a timely basis during his presidency, a congressional committee found on Tuesday, raising questions about statements by the former president and members of his administration who claimed he could not release his tax filings because of such ongoing reviews.A report by the Democratic majority on the House ways and means committee indicated the Trump administration may have disregarded an IRS requirement dating to 1977 that mandates audits of a president’s tax filings. The IRS only began to audit Trump’s 2016 tax filings on 3 April 2019, more than two years into his presidency and months after Democrats took the House. That date coincides with Richard Neal, the panel chairman, asking the IRS for information related to Trump’s tax returns.Required IRS audits of former President Donald Trump were delayed, according to a report issued by a Democratic-controlled House committee.A separate report suggested Trump paid a relatively modest share of his income to the federal government. https://t.co/m8y4Z2bJkE— The Associated Press (@AP) December 21, 2022
      There was no suggestion Trump, who has announced a third presidential run, sought to directly influence the IRS or discourage it from reviewing his tax information. But the report found that the audit process was “dormant, at best”.The 29-page report was published hours after the committee voted on party lines to release Trump’s tax returns, raising the potential of additional revelations related to the finances of a businessman who broke political norms by refusing to voluntarily release his returns as he sought the presidency. The vote was the culmination of a years-long fight between Trump and Democrats, from the campaign trail to Congress and the supreme court.Democrats on the ways and means committee argued that transparency and the rule of law were at stake. Republicans said the release would set a dangerous precedent.“This is about the presidency, not the president,” Neal told reporters.Kevin Brady, the panel’s top Republican, said: “Over our objections in opposition, Democrats have unleashed a dangerous new political weapon that overturns decades of privacy protections. The era of political targeting, and of Congress’s enemies list, is back and every American, every American taxpayer, who may get on the wrong side of the majority in Congress is now at risk.”Trump spent much of Tuesday releasing statements unrelated to his tax returns. The IRS did not immediately comment. An accompanying report released by the nonpartisan joint committee on taxation also found repeated faults with the IRS approach to auditing Trump and his companies.IRS agents did not bring in specialists to assess the complicated structure of Trump’s holdings. They also determined limited examination was warranted because Trump hired an accounting firm they assumed would make sure Trump “properly reports all income and deduction items correctly”.Read more:IRS failed to conduct timely mandatory audits of Trump’s taxes while presidentRead moreThe final report of the House January 6 committee that’s been investigating Donald Trump’s insurrection for the last 18 months will drop today. And it’s unlikely to make very palatable reading for the former president.The document, running to more than 1,000 pages, will put flesh on the bones of Trump’s plotting and scheming to stay in power after his 2020 election defeat. Those efforts landed him a referral to the justice department for four criminal charges.And it comes on the heels of Tuesday night’s vote by the House ways and means committee to publicly release up to six years of his tax returns, documents Trump had fought for three years to keep secret.We already knew, including from a series of televised hearings on the January 6 panel this year, many of the details of the insurrection. Trump incited a mob that overran the US Capitol on January 6 2021 seeking to halt the certification of Joe Biden’s victory; tried to manipulate states’ election results in his favor; and attempted to install slates of “fake electors” to reverse Biden’s win in Congress.But what we’ll see today is the deepest of dives into his efforts: the panel interviewed countless witnesses and reviewed thousands of documents and hundreds of hours of video evidence to compile the report and make recommendations.They include referrals to the House ethics committee for four Trump allies in Congress who refused to submit to the panel’s subpoenas to give evidence.We’re expecting the report to feature eight main chapters, detailed below, plus appendices that capture more aspects of the investigation, and findings from all of the select committee’s five investigative teams.We’ll bring you details when it drops.
      Donald Trump’s effort to sow distrust in the results of the election.
      The then-president’s pressure on state governments or legislatures to overturn victories by Joe Biden.
      Trump campaign efforts to send fake, pro-Trump electors to Washington from states won by Biden.
      Trump’s push to deploy the justice department in service of his election scheme.
      The pressure campaign by Trump and his lawyers against then-vice president Mike Pence.
      Trump’s effort to summon supporters to Washington who later fueled the 6 January mob.
      The 187 minutes of chaos during which Trump refused to tell rioters to leave the Capitol.
      An analysis of the attack on the Capitol.
      Good morning US politics blog readers, and welcome to what promises to be a hectic Wednesday. Donald Trump’s not-very-good week rolls into a third day with publication of the final report of the House January 6 committee that’s been investigating his insurrection for the last 18 months.We learned the essentials through a final public meeting and executive summary on Monday, when the bipartisan panel referred the former president for four criminal charges. But the final report, at more than 1,000 pages, will be a much deeper dive into Trump’s scheming to reverse his 2020 election defeat to Joe Biden.We’ll bring you the details when we receive it.Here’s what else we’re watching:
      There’s ongoing fallout from last night’s vote by the House ways and means committee to publicly release six years of Trump’s tax returns.
      Joe Biden and Washington lawmakers are preparing for Wednesday’s historic visit from Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, his first trip outside his country since it was invaded by Russia 10 months ago. Biden meets his counterpart at 2.30pm, followed by a joint press conference.
      Hakeem Jeffries, the incoming Democratic House minority leader, and congresswoman Suzan DelBene, nominee for head of the party’s congressional campaign committee, host a press briefing at 1pm on plans to retake the majority in 2024. More

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      House committee votes to release Trump’s tax returns to the public

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      House committee votes to release Trump’s tax returns to the publicAs a presidential candidate in 2016, Trump broke decades of precedent by refusing to release his tax forms to the public A powerful congressional committee on Tuesday voted to publicly release Donald Trump’s tax returns in a move that is sure to ignite a political row as well as anger among some privacy experts in America.The Democratic-controlled House ways and means committee decided to release the documents, which the former US president has long tried to shield, after several hours of debate.The New York Times previously released extensive chunks of Trump’s tax returns which showed how the real estate mogul and reality TV star had suffered serious losses and engaged in extensive tax avoidance.The decision by the panel comes after a long battle that ultimately resulted in the supreme court clearing the way last month for the treasury department to send the returns to Congress. The committee received six years of tax returns for Trump and some of his businesses.As a presidential candidate in 2016, Trump broke decades of precedent by refusing to release his tax forms to the public. He bragged during a presidential debate that year that he was “smart” because he paid no federal taxes and later claimed he wouldn’t personally benefit from the 2017 tax cuts he signed into law that favored people with extreme wealth, asking Americans to simply take him at his word.Tax records would have been a useful metric for judging his success in business. The image of a savvy businessman was key to a political brand honed during his years as a tabloid magnet and star of The Apprentice television show. They also could reveal any financial obligations – including foreign debts – that could influence how he governed.But Americans were largely in the dark about Trump’s relationship with the IRS until October 2018 and September 2020, when The New York Times published two separate series based on leaked tax records.The Pulitzer Prize-winning 2018 articles showed how Trump received a modern equivalent of at least $413m from his father’s real estate holdings, with much of that money coming from what the Times called “tax dodges” in the 1990s.Trump sued the Times and his niece, Mary Trump, in 2021 for providing the records to the newspaper. In November, Mary Trump asked an appeals court to overturn a judge’s decision to reject her claims that her uncle and two of his siblings defrauded her of millions of dollars in a 2001 family settlement.The 2020 articles showed that Trump paid just $750 in federal income taxes in 2017 and 2018. Trump paid no income taxes at all in 10 of the past 15 years because he generally lost more money than he made.Details about Trump’s income from foreign operations and debt levels were also contained in the tax filings, which the former president derided as “fake news”.The Manhattan district attorney’s office also obtained copies of Trump’s tax records in February 2021 after after a protracted legal fight that included two trips to the supreme court.The office, then led by District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr, had subpoenaed Trump’s accounting firm in 2019, seeking access to eight years of Trump’s tax returns and related documents.The DA’s office issued the subpoena after Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen told Congress that Trump had misled tax officials, insurers and business associates about the value of his assets. Those allegations are the subject of a fraud lawsuit that New York attorney general Letitia James filed against Trump and his company in September.Trump’s longtime accountant, Donald Bender, testified at the Trump Organization’s recent criminal trial that Trump reported losses on his tax returns every year for a decade, including nearly $700m in 2009 and $200m in 2010.The Trump Organization was convicted earlier this month on tax fraud charges for helping some executives dodge taxes on company-paid perks such as apartments and luxury cars.Republicans, meanwhile, have railed against the potential release, arguing that it would set a dangerous precedent.Trump has argued there is little to be gleaned from the tax returns even as he has fought to keep them private. “You can’t learn much from tax returns, but it is illegal to release them if they are not yours!” he complained on his social media network last weekend.Congressman Kevin Brady of Texas, the ways and means committee’s Republican leader, has accused Democrats on the committee of “unleashing a dangerous new political weapon that reaches far beyond President Trump, and jeopardizes the privacy of every American”.The Associated Press contributed to this reportTopicsDonald TrumpUS politicsUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesnewsReuse this content More

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      What’s In (and Not In) the $1.7 Trillion Spending Bill

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      A big boost for the military, more aid for Ukraine, a preference for the lobster industry over whales and an overhaul of the Electoral Count Act are among the provisions in the 4,155-page bill lawmakers expect to pass this week.WASHINGTON — Billions of dollars in emergency aid to war-torn Ukraine and communities ravaged by natural disasters. A bipartisan proposal to overhaul the archaic law at the heart of former President Donald J. Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election. And a divisive oceanic policy that will change federal protections for whales in an effort to protect the lobster industry in Maine.In compiling the roughly $1.7 trillion catchall spending package that will keep the government open through September, lawmakers inserted several new funding and legislative proposals to ensure their priorities and policies become law before the end of the year.It includes funding that will guarantee the enactment of policies first authorized in bipartisan legislation approved earlier in this Congress, including money for innovation hubs established in the semiconductor manufacturing law and projects in the infrastructure law. The package also includes a round of earmarks, rebranded as community project funding, that allow lawmakers to redirect funds to specific projects in their states and districts.Here is a look at some of the provisions that would go into effect if enacted.Military spending is the big winner.The Defense Department would see an extraordinary surge in spending when adding its regular 2023 fiscal year budget together with additional funds being allocated to help respond to the war in Ukraine.All together, half of the $1.7 trillion in funding included in the package goes to defense, or a total of $858 billion. It comes after lawmakers bucked a request from President Biden and approved a substantial increase in the annual defense policy bill passed this month.The 2023 budget just for the Defense Department would total $797.6 billion in discretionary spending — a 10 percent increase over last year’s budget — representing an extra $69.3 billion in funds for the Pentagon, which is $36.1 billion above the president’s budget request.Sprinkled throughout the spending bill are hundreds of high-ticket add-ons that Congress wants to make to the president’s original Defense Department budget, such as an additional $17.2 billion for procurement that the Pentagon can largely distribute to military contractors to buy new ships, airplanes, missile systems and other equipment. The overall Pentagon procurement budget with these additional funds would be $162 billion.One of the biggest chunks of that extra money is for shipbuilding — an extra $4 billion that brings the Navy’s overall shipbuilding budget to $31.96 billion. That will allow it to buy 11 new ships, including three guided missile destroyers and two attack submarines.But that is just the start. There is $8.5 billion to buy 61 F-35 fighter jets made by Lockheed Martin and another $2.5 billion to buy 15 of Boeing’s new aerial refueling planes known as KC-46 tankers.There is also an extra $27.9 billion to help cover Defense Department costs associated with the war in Ukraine, as part of an emergency aid package to the country. That includes an extra $11.88 billion to replenish U.S. stocks of equipment sent to Ukraine — money that again will largely be used to purchase products from military contractors. That supplemental appropriation also includes $9 billion to assist Ukraine with training, equipment and weapons, as well as an extra $6.98 billion to cover U.S. military operations in Europe.— Eric Lipton and John IsmayMaking it easier (for some) to save for retirement.The package also includes a collection of new rules aimed at helping Americans save for retirement. The bill would require employers to automatically enroll eligible employees in their 401(k) and 403(b) plans, setting aside at least 3 percent, but no more than 10 percent, of their paychecks. Contributions would be increased by one percentage point each year thereafter, until it reaches at least 10 percent (but not more than 15 percent). But this applies only to new employer-provided plans that are started in 2025 and later — existing plans are exempt.Another provision would help lower- and middle-income earners saving for retirement by making changes to an existing tax credit, called the saver’s credit, now available only to those who owe taxes. In its new form, it would amount to a matching contribution, from the federal government, deposited into taxpayers’ retirement accounts.People struggling with student debt would also receive a new perk: Employees making student debt payments would qualify for employer matching contributions in their workplace retirement plan, even if they were not making plan contributions of their own.What to Know About Congress’s Lame-Duck SessionCard 1 of 5A productive stretch. More